How to get away with the rape of a 14-year-old girl (via):
In conservative Muslim societies like Jordan, rapists can walk free thanks to penal code Article 308, known as the "rape-law".
In April, the unidentified girl was shopping in the northern city of Zarqa when a 19-year-old man kidnapped her, took her to the desert where he had a pitched a tent and raped her for three consecutive days, judicial sources said.
Police found the girl during a routine patrol, drove her back to her family home and arrested the man.
Within days news emerged that the boy had agreed to marry the girl, while all charges against him have been dropped.
Nice work.
Earlier this month, another girl, aged 15, was talked into following a young man to an empty apartment in Amman where she was also raped.
Judicial sources say the young man is now desperately trying to work out an arrangement with her family to marry her, to avoid going to jail.
Article 308 allows rape charges to be dropped if the perpetrator agrees to marry the victim. He cannot divorce the woman for five years.
"This article of the law not only helps perpetrators walk free, it rewards them by allowing them to marry their victims, who get punished ... for God knows what," Nadia Shamrukh, head of the Jordanian Women's Union, said.
Article 308 does have its supporters, though:
Israa Tawalbeh, the country's first woman coroner, sees "nothing wrong in Article 308 as such"....
"Accepting marriage under Article 308 is better than leaving girls to be killed by their parents or relatives," she said.
Well yes, there is that.
Comments